LTO seeks full gov’t control of LTMS portal

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) is seeking for a full government takeover of the Land Transportation Management System from German information technology contractor Dermalog.

In a statement on Thursday, LTO said the plan to fully takeover the LTMS “is in line with the marching order of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. to Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to digitalize all the government transactions” in a bid to ease bureaucratic processes for Filipinos.

LTO chief Vigor Mendoza said taking over the LTMS “will not only expedite all the technical issues raised by the Commission on Audit (COA) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).”

“Our IT experts are capable of operating and maintaining the system,” Mendoza said.

“In fact, they are the ones who are really working to fix the system to make it more comfortable for end-users, and eventually make the online platform fully utilized,” the LTO chief said.

The agency said that, for instance, the driver’s license issuance is now 100% under LTMS while the renewal of motor vehicle registration is now at 95% from 70%, when Mendoza assumed the helm of the LTO late July this year.

The focus right now, Mendoza said, is to further improve the registration of newly-registered units or NRUs which is currently at 60% under the LTMS system.

The LTO is pushing for full digital transactions before the end of November this year.

“[W]e are moving towards 100% utilization of the computer system, which the government paid for P3 billion,” said Mendoza.

The LTO said that the assessment and evaluation of the DICT found 14 deficiencies in the LTMS system and 166 needed enhancements to further improve the system.

“We can take over this… I created a Technical Working Group and right now, we are in the final phase of review and assessment for full implementation by next month,” said Mendoza.—LDF, GMA Integrated News